Man accused of MP Jo Cox's murder opts not to give evidence in his defence at trial

The two extremes of humanity came face to face when far right fanatic Thomas Mair brutally murdered Labour MP Jo Cox, jurors have been told.

The 53-year-old allegedly shot and stabbed the mother of two as she arrived at Birstall library, in West Yorkshire, for a surgery on June 16, a week before the EU referendum.

The defendant, who allegedly shouted "Britain first", had a stash of neo-Nazi material at his home and had collected a dossier on his 41-year-old Remain campaigning MP, the Old Bailey heard.

On Tuesday afternoon, the judge, Mr Justice Wilkie, adjourned the case until 10am on Wednesday when he said he would finish summing up expert, medical and forensic evidence before asking the jury to retire to consider its verdict.

A Nazi eagle found on Thomas Mair's bookcase containing books about the Third ReichCredit:
West Yorkshire Police

At the conclusion of the prosecution case, his lawyer Simon Russell Flint, QC, called no evidence on behalf of Mair, of Lowood Lane, Birstall.

In his closing speech, prosecutor Richard Whittam QC told jurors: "At 13.48 on the 16th of June in Market Street outside the public library in Birstall, the democratically-elected MP for Batley and Spen, Jo Cox, was murdered as she carried out her duties on behalf of her electorate.

"Constituents were waiting to speak to her in the library.

"The sheer brutality of her murder and the utter cowardice of her murderer bring the two extremities of humanity face to face."

Emergency services at the scene of Jo Cox's murder in Birstall, West YorkshireCredit:
Ben Lack for The Telegraph

Mrs Cox was a hard-working MP and mother of two young children.

Mr Whittam said her attack "brought out the best of the people who were with her" - the two members of staff and Birstall residents who came to her aid.

They came from all walks of life, he said, including a taxi driver and a 77-year-old man who was wounded as he tried to intervene.

Mr Whittam had suggested in his opening address that Mair's assault was "cowardly".

He told jurors: "Now you have heard the evidence you may have no doubt that it was."

A knife that was presented in evidence during the trial of Thomas MairCredit:
West Yorkshire Police

A gun that was presented in evidence during the trial of Thomas MairCredit:
West Yorkshire Police

Despite having the "element of surprise", Mair failed in his first attempt and came back to shoot and stab Mrs Cox again, the court heard.

Mr Russell Flint said: "Mrs Cox's death, you know, has touched many hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people, some who knew her and knew her well - her parents, her sibling, her husband, her children, not forgetting her friends and her colleagues who will forever be scarred by what happened to her in the street of that small West Yorkshire town on that June afternoon and will forever mourn her passing."

Addressing the jury, he said: "It is you and you alone who have been charged with the responsibility of determining what are the true verdicts on each of the counts on the indictment."

He added: "You and you alone will determine whether Thomas Mair can return to his quiet and solitary existence or will be forever remembered as the man who assassinated Jo Cox."